Current infotainment system in vehicles is such that users or passengers in the vehicle will have to listen to a same music or audio that is put on by one of the users. Most of the times, the music or audio that is played by interest of one user may not be of interest to another user and the user might get bored. Also, in one case, one of the users, for example, a driver may tend to hear navigation guidelines provided by the vehicle via the infotainment system and other users or passengers in the vehicle may not be interested in listening to the same. Therefore, users or passengers of the vehicle tend to put on two or more devices or sources like music-player and speakers in the vehicle. This results in overlapping of audio played via multiple devices and hence audio played by multiple users through multiple devices or sources cannot be heard properly. Therefore, it is necessary to segregate regions in the vehicle and play music or audio for the user in that particular region according to his/her music preferences, such that the sound playing in one region is not audible to the users sitting in other regions.
Some existing methods to overcome the above problem include a technique of directing sound waves in a particular direction by creating a directional sound field. These techniques are limited to an auditorium or sports stadium. Some of the other techniques use high and low frequency sounds to do customized spatial distribution of sound and a method for controlling the spatial distribution. Other methods include use of array of directional speakers to reduce interference of sound and enhance the listening experience. These techniques may not efficiently deliver sound to desired user as they fail to segregate sound in a closed space of the vehicle, for example a car, for personalized music or media content delivery in particular space.
The above said techniques may fail to create an audio space boundary for audio content delivery. The identification of the audio space boundary is a technical challenge as audio that the user intends to listen propagates within the enclosed space of the vehicle. Further, determining the boundary is difficult as a position, height and related parameters of each user might be different. Also, the position of the speakers used to emit the audio also varies. Thus, due to variation in the parameters, determination of the audio space boundary for audio content delivery becomes a technical challenge. Segregating sound in enclosed spaces has also been a challenge due to overlapping of sound patterns from one region to the other. Due to climate control for each position/region in the car, specific acoustic impedance for each region may be different and, thus sound from one region may enter the other region even with use of directional speakers.